


The World is Probably Enough to Be Getting on With

by squilf



Category: Inception (2010), James Bond - All Media Types
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe, Crack, M/M, Originally Posted on LiveJournal, TONS of Very British Swearing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-10-11
Updated: 2013-05-31
Packaged: 2019-07-25 14:14:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16199183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squilf/pseuds/squilf
Summary: Eames Bond is a secret agent. He’s also a fucking douchewank.Or, the James Bond AU where Eames is Bond, Saito is M, Yusuf is Q, and Arthur is one badass Bond girl.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I posted this on [my LiveJournal](https://squilf.livejournal.com/15937.html) in 2012, but never finished it. I'd all but forgotten about it until some lovely soul messaged me about it on tumblr.
> 
> I'm trying to bring all my old fics over to AO3, so I thought I might as well include this silly thing. It is currently abandoned, but I am tempted to revive it - or at least give it some kind of closure...

It all starts because of fucking Debra. (I mean ‘fucking’ as an adjective. Well, and a verb. My bad.) It also starts because of fucking M. (Adjective adjective _adjective_. I mean, ew. I do have standards.) Bloody wanker won’t get off my back about the bollocking surveillance reports. And I do not want M on my back. (Not in any way. As I said, _standards_.)

It’s Bond, by the way. Eames Bond. Secret agent, devilishly handsome chap, and pussy magnet. At your service.

Anyway, my bloody boss is phoning me up _again_ about said bollocking surveillance reports, and I really cannot be bothered. I’m in the _bath_. I’m having some ‘me’ time. (That’s not a euphemism for wanking. Never wank in the bath, you just get spunk everywhere. Trust me on this one.) I kind of want to drop my phone into the bathwater, but I know Q will just bitch about it if I do. He’s basically my nagging wife. My nagging forty-year-old inventor wife. He’s all ‘Bond, you drove the BMW off the roof of a carpark’, ‘Bond, you flipped the Aston Martin seven times’, ‘Bond, you barrel rolled the car over a river’. (Yeah, I kind of fuck up his cars a lot. And fuck in his cars a lot. My bad.) Anyway, I don’t want more bitching from Q, especially not after last time. (‘Bond, you got semen on the Geiger counter.’) That’s not the only thing that got semen on, if you know what I mean. So, the long-suffering slave to MI6 that I am, I pick up the phone.

“I suppose there’s no point in me hoping you’ve actually _done_ the surveillance reports, Bond?” says M.

M doesn’t do phone conventions. No ‘hello, Bond’, no ‘how are you doing, Bond?’, no, just, ‘I’m going to be a whiney arse about something, Bond’.

“Oh my God,” I say, “Can you shut up about the bollocking surveillance reports?”

“Maybe I would if you actually _did_ them.”

“The only thing I’m doing is _your mum_.”

M sighs heavily.

“I never did work out why they made you a 00.”

“Because I fucked a superior officer, duh.”

“Why am I not surprised.”

I shrug, putting my feet up in the bath.

“Because I am one fine piece of ass the ladies can’t wait to tap, presumably.”

“Just do the surveillance reports, Eames.”

I know he’s really angry when he uses my first name. (He uses my first name a lot.)

“Say please,” I say.

“ _Eames_.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll send them to Brunette #4 on Monday.”

“Good. If by Brunette #4, you mean my secretary.”

“Yeah. I ceebs to remember girls’ names, I just give them numbers. So much easier.”

“You don’t know her name? She’s been my secretary for six months, Bond.”

“I dunno, Janice? June?”

“Debra.”

“Oh, _right_. I remember now.”

(I don’t.)

“Well, I suppose that doesn’t matter now she is no longer in my employ,” M says curtly, “You’ll have to send the reports to my new secretary.”

“What happened to Bru – I mean Debra?”

“I find the same fault in Debra as I have had with all of my secretaries: a complete inability to keep her knickers on.”

“Maybe she should try getting a size that fits her properly,” I suggest.

I’m full of helpful suggestions, me.

“Or _maybe_ she should try keeping to her code of conduct,” says M in that I-am-contemplating-defecting-to-the-Russians-just-so-I-can-shoot-you tone of voice, “Debra is my tenth secretary to be compromised by an agent.”

I shake my head. _Really_. Some people have no shame.

“The bastard,” I say.

“Bond. That agent was you.”

You know, sometimes, I forget how much of a playa I am.

“Really? Sorry man, I really can’t remember. I get a lot of pussy, you know?” I say, laughing.

I find this situation _hilarious_. M doesn’t.

“Debra will be the last secretary I lose to your lack of self-control. I can’t afford to let compromised personnel handle sensitive documents.”

“Oh, I’m sure your new girl will handle my sensitive documents, alright.”

“My ‘new girl’ will not be interested in your documents. Except for the surveillance reports you’re going to send in on Monday.”

I roll my eyes. Not the bollocking surveillance reports again. I got the message.

“Listen, M-Dog,” I say, because that (like most things I do) always pisses M off, “There is no woman alive who can resist my _secret weapon_.”

“Please stop referring to your penis as ‘the secret weapon’. I would have thought you’d know better by now, after the Korean incident.”

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: how was I supposed to know which secret weapon you were referring to?”

“Given the context of the situation, I am fairly sure that ‘deploy the ground-to-air missiles’ was a much more likely order than ‘get your cock out’.”

I pull a face. He does kind of maybe have a point. But hey, I was under a lot of stress that day.

“It gave me the element of surprise,” I point out.

“I should hope so. If the enemy were expecting _that_ , we deserved to be nuked.”

“The secret weapon did its work that fine day,” I say, patting the little fella – well, not little, this bad boy is hardly _little_ , ladies – “As it will do with your new secretary.”

“No, it won’t work this time,” says M, sounding distinctly superior.

“Why not? Because she’s a tight bitch?”

“You have no idea, Bond.”

“No, M, my darling,” I say, because I’m a suave motherfucker like that, “It is _you_ who has no idea. No idea of my _powers_. In _bed_.”

“Why would I have any idea of that?”

“Because you have heard tell from the ladies that I am a sex God, of course.”

“No, the only thing I’ve heard them say is that you’re – oh what was it they said? ‘A dirty little nympho fuck who’d do anything on legs’, I think was the phrase.”

“Fuck you.”

“Please don’t.”

“Yeah, well,” I begin, “You won’t sound so smug when I’ve got your new secretary bent over her desk with my face in her tits and the secret weapon in her pussy.”

“That is never, _ever_ , going to happen.”

“Who are you, Taylor Swift? It fucking is. The secret weapon will hit its next target with maximum impact.”

M laughs. He actually laughs.

“Oh, Bond. You really have no chance.”

I frown.

“Just who _is_ this new secretary?”

I can just _feel_ M smirking.

“His name,” he says, “Is Arthur Moneypenny.”

I throw the fucking phone into the toilet.


	2. In Which I Am Totally Not Q’s Bitch But He Is The Bitchiest Bitch Of All The Bitches

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arthur Moneypenny is the reason I’m hanging about at home, filling in endless surveillance reports for a boss who would expect me to do everything he asked me even if my testicles had been ripped off by a vengeful pixie which ran off into the night, cackling, “I am the knobgoblin!”

In hindsight, then, it actually all starts because of fucking Moneypenny. (Adjective. I am as straight as a Roman road, ladies.) There are two things you need to know about Arthur Moneypenny:

He’s the best sniper the Americans have got, with a kill streak of 114.

Three months ago, someone broke that kill streak.

That someone was me.

(Okay, so what, that was four things, I’m a spy not a mathematician. Three things. Whatever. At least I’m pretty.) Anyway, Arthur Moneypenny is the reason I’m hanging about at home, filling in endless surveillance reports for a boss who would expect me to do everything he asked me even if my testicles had been ripped off by a vengeful pixie which ran off into the night, cackling, “I am the knobgoblin!” I should probably explain. About Moneypenny, that is. Not the knobgoblin. I don’t think that needs any more explanation.

Imagine the scene three months ago. I’m in Paris. Life is good. The weather’s nice, I am working the linen trousers, and this really hot Latino chick – Brunette #17, I believe – is _totally_ into me. Like she def wants the bacon. I’m doing some mission or something, I don’t know, something M’s making me do, I really can’t remember. Then a week in, everything goes to shit. I end up having a highly improbable fistfight with a French mercenary on the fucking roof of the Louvre (I mean seriously, you couldn’t write this stuff), but he pulls some parkour shit on me and gets away. I’ve got to pursue him on the only vehicle available – a little girl’s pushbike – which is so _not_ my coolest moment. Next thing I know, there’s a searing pain in my chest, like actual fucking _agony_ , worse even than papercuts, and I’m bleeding out on the street from underneath a _pink tricycle_ and it’s literally the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to me. Not to mention painful. Seriously, who would have thought getting shot hurts so much? I can’t really remember anything after that, it was more of a blackout-pain-blood medley. Mostly pain. Lots of pain.

Then, I wake up two weeks later in a dodgy hotel in Spain with Brunette #16 (or was it #17?) telling me I’d survived a bullet wound to the heart and also can I pay the bill for the hotel. According to MI6, I’m missing, presumed dead, which is pretty well the best excuse to have a holiday I’ve ever had. So I take a bit of time off, because hey, I work hard, I deserve it. Let’s skim over what happens over the next few months – it involves drug lords and Amsterdam and stripping, so much stripping – and just say that it was eventful to say the least. But, after pulling most of the muscles in my thighs and becoming more intimately acquainted with a pole than I ever expected to be in my life, I get a phone call from fucking Q saying that he’s known I’m actually alive for the last two months, so can I leave behind my lucrative career as an exotic dancer and please report back to M.

So I do. Not because I’m Q’s bitch or something, no way, I was thinking of going back anyway, getting a bit bored of the whole Magic Mike lark, you know. M gives me a withering look when I turn up in his flat and says he’s deeply disappointed I didn’t die. Q gives me a withering look when I turn up on his doorstep and says he’s deeply disappointed I didn’t call. Even my cat fucking judges me. (Her name is Pussy Galore, which is a fucking hilarious name for a cat and also an accurate description of my sex life.) M’s punishing me by giving me bollocking surveillance reports. He says it’s because I can’t go back to the field yet to keep up the belief that I’m dead but we all know he’s enjoying this, the sick bastard. Q’s punishing me by acting all hurt and being bitchier than usual because he’s actually my wife. I really don’t deserve this punishment. At least Pussy Galore has kind of forgiven me now I’ve given her tons of whiskas and let her sleep in my bed. That won’t work for M or Q though. Ew, now I’m imagining all of us in my bed. That’s weird. Let’s just move swiftly on, shall we?

“Arthur _Moneypenny_ , Q,” I say.

“Arthur _fucking_ Moneypenny,” I say, because Q’s not paying me any attention.

He’s just sitting in his fucking lab and twiddling with my phone, frowning at it like he’s trying to understand something that doesn’t make any sense, like quantum physics or Nicki Minaj’s career or why M dislikes his most handsome, intelligent, and fucking suave agent (that’d be me, by the way).

“Arthur _fucking_ –”

“I heard you the first time,” says Q, in that you-have-no-fucking-idea-how-late-at-night-I-stay-up-fiddling-with-my-equipment-because-of-you-and-no-that’s-not-a-fucking-euphemism voice.

“But _Q_ ,” I say, “Arthur fucking –”

“Sweetheart, his middle name is Eustace, not Fucking,” says Q.

I take a moment to wonder what it would be like in a world where Fucking was a legitimate middle name. I decide it would be pretty awesome. I mean, I’d be Eames Fucking Bond. That’s awesome. The only downside would be if your last name could be a first name too. Like Paul Fucking Stewart. That just sounds kind of gay. And I don’t mean gay like in a bad way, I mean gay in a you-screw-other-dudes-and-enjoy-it kind of a way. Which is fine, well, I mean, I wouldn’t know, it’s not something I’ve ever done or even _considered_. Nothing can turn me away from pussy. Oh yes, I am a ladies’ man. A manly man who likes ladies. Yeah. Just thought I should get that out there.

“Don’t call me sweetheart,” I tell Q, because I’ve been distracted by middle names and gay men and can’t quite remember where this conversation was going, “I’m not your wife.”

Q snorts.

“You so are.”

“If anyone’s the wife here, it’s you.”

Q looks up from the phone to give me an intense bitchface.

“I’m not the one who bakes cinnamon muffins at the weekend.”

I take real offense to this. My cinnamon muffins are fucking _fantastic_.

“Is there something wrong with my muffins?”

“They’re not exactly the manliest of baked goods,” Q mutters under his breath.

“And what is?” I ask, now more confused than offended.

“Beef and power tool cake?” Q suggests.

“Anyway,” I say, because this conversation has really gone off track, “You’re wrong. Moneypenny’s middle name is Eugene, not Eustace.”

Q gives me a you-fucking-creeper look.

“I read his file,” I say defensively.

“Course you did,” says Q, turning back to the phone.

“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing. Just, of course _you_ would have read the file of a dangerous, high-profile, handsome American ex-spy.”

I narrow my eyes at him.

“What are you insinuating?”

“That you’re a meticulous agent,” says Q, “And maybe a flaming homosexual.”

“I am _not_!” I cry.

“Oh, sorry. You’re _definitely_ a flaming homosexual.”

“How can you say that? I’ve slept with more women that you’ve met!”

“Overcompensating,” Q mutters.

“I’m not overcompensating! The secret weapon is more than adequately sized!”

“Oh, I’m sure it’s big enough. You’d just rather stick it in a dude.”

“Q, Moneypenny _shot_ me! In the fucking chest. You know, _where my heart is_. Forgive me for reading up about him a little!”

“Hmm,” says Q, taking a sip of tea from a mug which I have a sudden urge to smash, “Stalkery.”

“I’m a _spy_ , Q. I’m basically a professional stalker. It’s what I do.”

Q shrugs.

“You could have just asked for his number.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I would have, but I was _bleeding to death_ when we met!”

Q looks up and points the pair of tweezers he’s holding at me in a decidedly threatening manner.

“Don’t give me this shit about getting shot. You lost all sympathy from me when you ran away for half a year.”

“It was only three months!”

“You didn’t tell me where you were, who you were with, when you were going to be back,” Q says sternly, “Your spymaster and I were very worried about you.”

I blink.

“You’re not my fucking parents! You can’t tell me what to do!”

Q sighs heavily, his glasses falling down his nose.

“I understand, you got hurt by the boy you liked, but that doesn’t mean you have to run off to Amsterdam and become a stripper. You could have just _talked to him_.”

“Firstly, he did not merely _hurt_ me, he nearly _killed_ me! And secondly, I was not a stripper, I was an exotic dancer! And secondly, I can’t just _talk_ to him, no!”

“You said ‘secondly’ twice.”

“I’m a spy, not a mathematician!”

“You’re going to have to talk to Moneypenny anyway. You’ve got to give him those reports,” says Q, nodding at the bollocking surveillance reports tucked under my arm.

“No,” I say, shoving the reports on Q’s desk, “ _You’re_ going to give him those reports.”

Q gives me the finger.

“Fuck off, I’ve got enough to do.”

“Oh my God, I can’t talk to him! It’s so embarrassing! My hair looks so bad today.”

“Stop acting like a teenaged girl around the boy you fancy. Man up and start acting like a grown man around the boy you fancy.”

“I don’t _fancy_ him!”

“Take him the fucking reports, bitch.”

“I’m not your bitch,” I say, and take the fucking reports.


	3. In Which Moneypenny Turns Out To Actually Be Even Bitchier Than Q, A Feat I Would Previously Have Deemed Impossible But There You Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I can think of sixteen ways to kill you using just this pencil,” says Moneypenny.  
> “And what,” I say, “Can you do with other items of stationery?”

Although I swagger confidently, as I always do because I’m just that fucking suave, towards Moneypenny’s office, I’m literally shitting bricks. Well, not literally, I don’t think that’s humanly possible. But, you know, I’m kind of freaked out. Q does have a point about Moneypenny being terribly handsome. Not that I noticed. Not that I would notice. Not that I can see in any way myself why he might be attractive because I am extremely heterosexual. Obviously, I’m freaked out because the dude’s a fucking master assassin and has already nearly killed me once. And he’s probably going to try again. And probably succeed. Oh God, who am I fucking kidding, I’m dead already.

I stop before the door to Moneypenny’s office. It’s like waiting for St Peter to judge if you can enter Heaven. Only I’m waiting for Moneypenny to judge if I can enter him. Wait, what? Fuck, I really don’t know what’s going on right now, I’m too scared to think. Moneypenny is going to slice off my dick, or do something else terrible and penis-related. I don’t know quite what. Okay, this is ridiculous. I really need to stop thinking about Moneypenny’s genitals. I’m just going to give him the bollocking surveillance reports and go. There will be no dick slicing. There will be no dick _anything_. We will both be completely professional.

I open the door.

Oh, _shit_.

I feel like I’ve been shot again. Moneypenny is sitting at his desk, back straight, eyes down. He’s _perfect_. Like, he’s been fucking sculpted by Broccoli or Botulism or whatever his name was. His suit moulds to his body effortlessly, like it’s a part of him, just as much as his slicked-back hair or dark eyes or skinny wrists. He’s typing. Those hands, hands that are meant to hold a gun, long fingers and short fingernails, just _typing_. I feel like I’m experiencing the mental equivalent of a keyboard smash.

And then Moneypenny looks up. And that mental keyboard smash gets _nasty_. Like you’ve got caps lock on and you’re typing so fast your fingers are disintegrating into a bloody pulp so you have to just bash the bloody thing with your face. Moneypenny blinks. Like a tiger blinks before it fucking _rips your face off_. There is a heavy silence.

“Bond?” he says.

I manage a smile. It’s meant to be rakish, but it probably ends up more psychotic.

“Yes.”

“I shot you.”

“Yes.”

“You’re not dead.”

“Yes.”

“Why are you not dead?”

“Yes.”

“Can you say anything other than yes?”

“Yes.”

Moneypenny raises his eyebrows expectantly. I try to think of something witty and suave to say. I fail.

“I like your hands.”

What the fuck? Oh well done, me, that was suave. _Not_.

“What?”

“I mean – they’re good for _murdering_ people.”

I am failing so hard right now. Moneypenny is looking at me like he’s going to eat me. And not in a good way.

“I am an assassin, Bond.”

“Er, _no_ ,” I scoff, walking towards him, “You’re a _secretary_.”

Moneypenny clenches his jaw. He picks up a pencil on his desk, running it between his fingers. It’s terrifying but strangely erotic. (That’s actually an accurate description of Moneypenny in general.)

“I can think of sixteen ways to kill you using just this pencil,” he says.

“And what,” I say, leaning over his desk, “Can you do with other items of stationery?”

That… really didn’t sound quite so pervy in my head.

“Kill you again.”

“ _Again_? Darling, you failed the first time.”

“I’ve killed 114 men in two years. I _don’t_ fail.”

“Well, it looks like you did this time, darling.”

The pencil snaps. I feel like that’s a metaphor for what will be happening to me imminently. Moneypenny leaps to his feet and grabs my shoulders tightly. I drop the surveillance reports.

“Why are you not dead?”

He leans close, his face inches from mine. It’s kind of distracting.

“I _saw_ you in Paris, I had a clear shot. I saw you fall. I saw the blood.”

“Yeah, you got me alright.”

“Where?”

I undo my top few buttons and pull my shirt open, showing Moneypenny the ugly red scar on my chest.

“Here,” I say.

He stares at the scar.

“You should be dead,” he breathes.

“Yeah.”

Moneypenny looks up at me. His tongue pushes out of his mouth, running along his lips. He blinks.

And then he attacks me. He fucking _dives_ over the desk, throwing me to the floor, his whole body slamming into me.

“WHY AREN’T YOU DEAD?” he screams.

I stare up at him blankly, because I’m not entirely sure if I’m actually still alive.

“Answer me!”

“Er… I… uh… I don’t know?”

“You don’t know. You don’t _fucking_ know. I can’t _believe_ this! How long have you not been dead?”

“Um, always?”

“AND NO-ONE THOUGHT TO TELL ME?”

“Apparently not…”

“Oh no, we won’t _mention_ to our top agent that his kill streak is broken, we’ll let him think he mistakenly killed an ally, even though he _doesn’t make mistakes_ , he never fails, we’ll just let him visit the grave of a man who isn’t dead, let him mourn someone who’s _still alive_ , and is actually a fucking _asshole_!”

I frown up at Moneypenny. My face is the only thing I can move right now. Moneypenny’s covering my body with his, holding me down fast, hands around my wrists. He’s obviously done this before. Oh my mind just went places with that.

“You…” I begin, “You went to my grave?”

“You were dead then!” Moneypenny yells, and tries to strangle me.

Well, I say _tries_ ; he actually does a pretty good job of it. I try to shove him away but somehow he wraps his legs around mine and clings on. Kicking and squirming doesn’t seem to be doing much good either. I ponder on the irony that the man who failed to kill me with a gun is now killing me with just his hands. His strong, neat, assassin’s hands. Then I decide I need to stop pondering or thinking slightly gay thoughts about a secretary’s hands will be the last thing I ever do. And then I realise my phone is in Q’s workshop, so, yeah, I am going to die, oh well. The whole thing’s a bit of a rollercoaster really. A painful, choking rollercoaster.

And it’s just now, when I’m pretty oxygen deprived and am thinking I’m probably going to pass out pretty soon, that the door opens. Moneypenny lets go, and I cough, desperately gulping in air. Oh sweet Jesus, oxygen, you feel so good inside me, baby.

“It’s not what it looks like,” says Moneypenny.

I turn to the open door. Standing there, in the doorway, hands on his hips, is M.

“I expect this of Bond,” he says, “But Moneypenny? _Really_?”


	4. Actually, Q Really Is Bitchy So I Might Have To Give The Bitch Of The Year Award To Him On Balance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Love,” I say, “Is something that’s made up so ugly people who have a ‘great personality’ don’t feel bad about the fact that they’re single and boring.”

“Ow. _Ow_. What are you trying to do, finish me off?”

“No, Eames, I am trying to clean this cut, but if you don’t stop complaining I _will_ get the exploding teacups out and see if they’ll do the job.”

I groan. I fucking hate those teacups. A while ago someone left them lying around, and, long story short, I and half of Q branch ended up in A&E with first-degree burns. One of the engineers now has an overwhelming fear of porcelain.

“Now stop squirming,” says Q, and tightens his grip on my head.

I should have known better than to let him loose on me with a First Aid kit. It feels like he’s just injuring me more.

“I would if you weren’t _excavating the back of my fucking skull!_ Ow!”

“Yes, I’m afraid all I’ve found is a large empty space inside.”

“Q, please. I just _nearly died_.”

“Oh, does Moneypenny like it rough?” says Q, laughing.

“Moneypenny likes to _kill people_. Mostly me.”

“Oh, come on, he can’t really want you dead. He’s failed to kill you twice now.”

“ _Wow_ ,” I say, with much sarcasm, “He must really like me.”

Q shrugs, and sticks one of his Disney Princess plasters over my cut.

“Maybe he’s not the only one who’s overcompensating.”

I sigh, flopping back on Q’s desk, so my head’s falling off one end, my legs the other, and my arms trailing down either side.

“I’m not gay,” I say, though it comes out like a whine.

“You know,” says Q, putting away the torture instruments he calls a First Aid kit, “I knew a guy like you once, when I was in the army. Medic. Straight as a Roman road, he said.”

“Was he any better at First Aid than you?”

Q gives me a do-you-think-I-was-fucking-kidding-about-the-exploding-teacups-Eames look, and pointedly starts fiddling with something on his desk that looks like it would cause a considerable amount of pain if it came into contact with the human body.

“ _Sorry_ , Q,” I say, “Tell me about the army doctor, I’m sure it’s fucking fascinating.”

“Last I heard, he was living with a very handsome bloke, solving crimes.”

I point furiously at Q, like my finger is really angry.

“No, no, you are not going to turn me and Moneypenny into Dean and Sam Winchester.”

Q frowns.

“Are they –?”

“Yup.”

“But they’re –”

“Yup.”

“But that’s –”

“Yup.”

Q shudders.

“I did not need those mental images.”

I shrug.

“That’s what you said when I told you about me and Blonde #41 on that kayak in the Isle of Man.”

I smile at the ceiling. A lot has to be said for flexibility. It can achieve wonderful things.

“Number forty-one?” Q repeats, “You’re saying you’ve slept with forty-one women?”

“Forty-one _blonde_ women. And there’s been a lot after her, too. Take that into account, plus the brunettes and the gingers – and a few grey-haired women, after one brief but memorable visit to that old folks’ home in Kent – and the full total is actually a hundred and twenty two and a half.”

Q raises an eyebrow.

“And a half?”

“You don’t wanna know.”

“You see what I mean? _Overcompensating_.”

I scoff. If anyone is overcompensating, it is definitely not me. I am the last person to overcompensate. I would never do that. I would never need to do that. In any scenario. Ever. I think Q is overcompensating.

“Honey,” I say, “You could have just admitted that you want me.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t say this before, but, there’s something about your blatant misogyny, shameless whoredom and complete lack of professionalism that really turns me on.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised.”

(Really, I wouldn’t. I’m fucking amazing.)

Q narrows his eyes.

“You’re avoiding the subject.”

“What are you, my therapist?”

I totally did my last therapist. Blonde #27. I reckon she’d have had to treat that couch with some pretty stringent cleaning products once we were done with it. Or at least get her maid to. Did I shag her maid as well? I have a feeling I might have.

“You like Moneypenny,” Q goes on regardless, “And he likes you.”

“So you say.”

“So does M.”

“That’s because he misconstrued his secretary attempting to kill me with his bare hands as his secretary attempting to kill me with another part of his anatomy.”

(I’m sure Moneypenny is fully capable of both, but that’s not the point.)

“Well, it wouldn’t be the first time he’s caught his secretary doing either of those things,” Q says, and yeah, maybe he does have a point.

I shrug.

“I can’t blame them for the latter.”

“I can.”

Ah, now I think about it, I didn’t shag the maid. Third base in the broom cupboard. She needed to work on her technique. Too much teeth.

“Stop grinning,” says Q, “I know you’re thinking about something dirty.”

“Yeah, my kitchen.”

“Eames, just because your cleaning lady ran all the way to Puerto Rico just to get away from you does not mean I am cleaning your kitchen.”

“She didn’t run away from me! I told her I was coming with her, and then… didn’t.”

“Ever the gentleman.”

“It wasn’t my fault! She got all weird, thought I loved her or something.”

I hate it when women do that. It’s like, I don’t care. I’m not interested in your _heart_ , I’m interested in a far more exciting part of your body.

“Yeah,” says Q, “Strange how shagging people gives them the impression you like them.”

I groan tiredly.

“Stop judging me, grandma.”

Q stops messing around with whatever the fuck it is on his desk, probably a nuclear-powered spoon or something, and looks over his glasses at me.

“No, _really_ , Eames. Have you ever loved anyone? Except for yourself, that is.”

“Love,” I say, “Is something that’s made up so ugly people who have a ‘great personality’ don’t feel bad about the fact that they’re single and boring.”

Q laughs.

“Oh, you _did_. You loved someone _bad_ , didn’t you? Only a scorned lover could possibly sound that bitter.”

“I am not bitter!” I say, quite bitterly.

“What was it? Childhood sweetheart leave you for someone else?”

I cross my arms and shut my eyes.

“This is a stupid conversation and you are a stupid person and I don’t associate with stupid people and their stupid conversations!”

Q gets up, comes over to me.

“Someone broke your heart, didn’t they? And ever since you’ve tried to drown out your pain by sleeping around. But it doesn’t quite fill the hole, does it?”

“Shut up or I’ll fill your hole.”

“You can’t avoid your feelings forever, Eames.”

“Well, I’ve been avoiding them for the past eighteen years alright.”

Q does the sums.

“So I _was_ right!”

I sit up so quickly it hurts my (rippling and intensely toned) stomach muscles.

“You know what, you are wrong about me and you are wrong about Moneypenny and you are also wrong about many other things which I cannot think of at this present time!”

Q holds up his hands in an attempt to calm me. I am not calmed.

“You’re getting defensive, Eames.”

“ _You’re_ getting defensive!”

I get up and start to storm out.

“You’re a fucking _castle_ of defensiveness!” I yell, “You’re so defensive, you make tortoises look – non-defensive!”

“That’s very defensive,” Q says flatly.

“Yeah, well that’s what you are! Defending things, like a – defender!”

I’m starting to think I’m losing track of this. I head for the door before I can say anything any more embarrassing.

“I fixed your phone,” says Q, fishing it out of his pocket.

“Well I don’t want it!” I shout, and sweep out of the room.

And now I remember I kind of need my phone. Fucking Q. Fucking Moneypenny. Fucking – _fuck_.


End file.
